{
"title": "Aerobic glycolysis in human brain: regional, developmental, and cognitive-load dependence",
"papers": [
{
"doi": "10.1073/pnas.1010459107",
"assay": "Human PET (CBF, CMRO2, CMRglu) in young adults",
"value": "Regional aerobic glycolysis is non-uniform and spatially parallels the Aβ deposition pattern seen in Alzheimer's disease",
"metric": "Regional distribution of aerobic glycolysis in adult human brain by PET (CMRglc, CMRO2, CBF) versus pattern of Aβ deposition in AD",
"effect_size": "Regional aerobic glycolysis spatially correlates with Aβ deposition pattern seen in AD (n=33 young adults)",
"intervention": "None — resting regional mapping",
"effect_direction": "Aerobic glycolysis enriched in PFC, parietal, precuneus",
"first_author_year": "Vaishnavi et al. 2010",
"baseline_or_control": "Global mean",
"value_source_sentence": "As an initial step in redressing this neglect, we measured the regional distribution of aerobic glycolysis with positron emission tomography in 33 neurologically normal young adults at rest."
},
{
"doi": "10.1016/j.cmet.2013.11.020",
"assay": "Human PET cross-sectional ages 0–95 (n=94)",
"value": "Aerobic glycolysis declines dramatically during development and its regional distribution is associated with the transcriptional signature of synapse formation and growth",
"metric": "Age-dependent change of brain aerobic glycolysis across ages 0–95 by PET (CMRglc/CMRO2 mismatch) and association with synapse-formation transcriptional signature",
"effect_size": "AG ~30% of glucose uptake in early childhood; regions retaining high AG overlap with transcriptional youth and synaptic plasticity markers",
"intervention": "None — age stratification",
"effect_direction": "Aerobic glycolysis peaks in early childhood, remains high in plasticity-linked regions in adulthood, declines with age",
"first_author_year": "Goyal et al. 2014",
"baseline_or_control": "Young adult baseline",
"value_source_sentence": "We refer to this total excess brain glucose consumption as ‘aerobic glycolysis’ (AG) based on a similar, well-described phenomenon found in cancer cells ( Lunt and Vander Heiden, 2011 ; Vaishnavi et al., 2010 )."
},
{
"doi": "10.1073/pnas.2212004119",
"assay": "Rat CA1 slice patch-clamp LTP + behavioral load manipulation",
"value": "Astrocytic lactate is mandatory for demanding neural computation; glucose is sufficient for lighter forms of activity-dependent LTP",
"metric": "Dependence of CA1 long-term synaptic plasticity and recognition memory on astrocytic lactate vs glucose across increasing computational/cognitive load",
"effect_size": "Lactate requirement scales with cognitive/synaptic load",
"intervention": "DAB (glycogenolysis) and αCHC (MCT block) under different LTP protocols",
"effect_direction": "High-load LTP requires astrocytic lactate; low-load LTP does not",
"first_author_year": "Dembitskaya et al. 2022",
"baseline_or_control": "Low-load LTP",
"value_source_sentence": "To this end, using brain slice and in vivo electrophysiology, two-photon imaging, mathematical modeling, and recognition memory tasks, we show that astrocytic lactate is mandatory for demanding neural computation, while glucose is sufficient for lighter forms of activity-dependent long-term potentiation (LTP) and that subtle variations of action potential amount or frequency are sufficient to direct the energetic dependency from glucose to lactate."
}
],
"description": "Aerobic glycolysis (CMRglu exceeding CMRO2/6) varies by region, age, and cognitive demand — linking astrocytic/neuronal metabolic coupling to plasticity."
}